Red Alert!
by BrenRenQoI
Summary: Sequel to Red Light Honeymoon! Lois can’t get that “dream” out of her head… Clark’s a little Red K hung-over, and some odd late-night Super-activities are coming in on the morning news reports. Somebody’s in trouble, and this time it ain’t Lois!
1. Chapter 1

~~*S*~~

Red Alert  
By Bren Ren

~*S*~

Summary: Sequel to Red Light Honeymoon, read it first and this'll make a little more sense. In theory. Lois can't get that "dream" out of her head… and Clark's a little Red K hung-over, so he's rather decidedly ill-equipped to deal with Lois's determined personal investigation of *him* in the midst of their professional investigation into some odd late-night Super-activities coming in on the morning news reports.

Rating: **MA **~ Still firmly lodged in Mature Audience Adults Only Territory here, FoLC's. Lots more hot Sexual Content and Adult Themes! ;P

Disclaimer: Not mine. Tis easier to ask forgiveness than permission. And you know crazy fans like me are good for business one way or another!

~*S*~

Lois woke up very slowly and very, very begrudgingly. She had, in fact, already procrastinated consciousness by a fair few hours with the judicious use of the thick hotel curtains here in the honeymoon suite and a couple of pillows over her head for good measure to ensure no hint of light penetrated her tightly fastened eyelids. She did **not **want to wake up.

Waking up meant the dream would end.

And it was such a _**good **_dream.

Best dream of her life, hands down. _Well, more like hands-all-over-the-place,_ she mentally amended. She didn't envy housekeeping's cleaning duty when it came to those sheets. _Who says only guys can have wet dreams? _She did briefly contemplate burning them to destroy the evidence, but considering all that the room had suffered already, she refrained from indulging her inner pyromaniac.

Instead, she got lost in recalling every single detail she could grasp from that hell of a heavenly fantasy. It had felt so incredibly vivid, so surreal-ly _real_, that as consciousness slowly asserted itself, she actually felt physically sore—and in muscles that hadn't had cause to be sore for a very long time.

But it was just a dream. _Had to be a dream._

Didn't really happen.

Only in one seriously, deliriously delusional fantasy could Clark Kent possibly be pulling off a secret identity—not just under her nose—right up front and center and in her face.

That would never happen. It couldn't.

_Could it?_

No. It. Could. Not.

Never. Clark would never do something like that to her—carry on a dual-identity behind her back, and then use that alter-ego to seduce her. He would never be that guy.

_Unless…_

Unless what? He was drugged? Drunk? Under the influence of God-knows-what, and whatever it was would have to be pretty damn powerful—only something Super-strong could possibly effect Super—NO! No, no, no, no, nonononoNO!

_But he really is Mr. Hard-body underneath those bulky suits and those outrageous ties…. God, those ties… _

Never mind the great bondage potential inherent in that particular men's accessory, she long ago realized that she seemed to find a man who likes to buck convention in such a wild, eye-catching, and sometimes horrid fashion as Clark Kent's eclectic and eye-boggling inventory to be... _incredibly, unconventionally __**sexy.**_Her eyes widened as panic started to set in. She was losing her own battle of wills—against herself, no less.

_And he really does have a well-defined set of big, strong chest muscles... despite having the dietary consumption of an eight-year-old's wildest dreams. _

Wide and broad, muscles bulging full and proud and just shy of ridiculously pumped up, a flawless set of six-pack abs. She blinked hard several times whilst gulping air into her lungs. Losing… the will… to fight…

_Yup, that image is permanently burned on the inside of my eyelids. I can seek Clark half-naked anytime I want. All I have to do is blink!_

And the Suit **does**, in fact, **come **_**off**_**.**

_But if he's… _

No. He couldn't be.

_Could he?_

It's just too crazy to really be real. …Isn't it?

_Is it?_

Lois Lane sat up abruptly, throwing the pillows off her head, across the bed, and all the way out to the far walls.

_God help that man if he is..._

Then she caught sight of something out of the corner of her eye. She looked down where her head and pillows used to lie, and there, in all their mighty splendor atop the white satin sheet lay a pair of shiny red men's briefs.

***Superman*** Red. Well, hell. Like she would ever possibly buy any lame excuses, any "logical" rationalizations for that.

_Watch out, __**Super-Small**__ville. Hell hath no fury like Mad Dog Lane._

**~S~**

Clark Kent woke up in his own bed, and considering the few hazy memories he could recall in the first moments of consciousness, this was likely very, very fortunate.

_What a crazy night! _His last clear memory was hanging up after an awkward late-night call from Lois, heading for a Super-cold shower in the Arctic, getting waylaid stopping a big-rig hijacking on the interstate… and that was it. Clarity ended there and things started getting fuzzy. _And… __**hot**__…?_

His memory didn't black out, it faded out, into red. Bright, bold, blaring, blinding red.

And after that, events became increasingly disjointed. Surreal. Unreal. Really, really, vividly real.

_And… steamy…? Or was that… sweaty…??_

He doubted the validity of some of his more off-the-wall "memories", but one particular episode of last night's bizarrely adventuresome journey did suddenly stood out in crystalline detail: Lois Lane, in the honeymoon suite, making wantonly passionate love with him. _Wild, hot, carnal, passionate lovemaking. A floor-to-ceiling-and-back-again fervent sextacular extravaganza!_

_With __**me!**__ The __**real **__me!_

The real man, **Clark Superman Kent.**

But _**Lois**_ wanted to make herself believe it was all just a fantasy. Nothing more than a crazy little dream. It was like being hit with a sucker punch in the nuts: she told him she couldn't handle finding out her partner and best friend has been lying to her from day one, and that he and her superhero fantasy were one and the same. She wasn't ready—worse, "it might very well **kill**" her. And then she'd asked him to promise never to tell her if it really had happened. He thanked all that was good in the world that he had at least been able to convince her to leave it on the table for some vague, distant someday. _However deeply she may try to bury it on the back burners._

_And she may try for all she's worth… but that doesn't necessarily mean she'll succeed. _

Lois could certainly qualify for the poster-child of self-deluding denial, but deep down, Clark truly, and a bit desperately, hoped her intellectual brilliance would help her, or maybe even force her to see the truth, no matter how hard or how deeply she tried to bury her head in the sand.

_She's a lot stronger and tougher, especially in the affairs of the heart, than she gives herself credit for._

She survived that creep-frog Claude, and while perhaps she might be a little too cynical and jaded after all was said and done following his cruel betrayal, she was nonetheless stronger and tougher for it. And this, well, this was completely different. Clark was nothing like that Neapolitan Casanova, and he certainly wasn't trying to steal any stories from her. For crying out loud, he _**enjoyed **_sharing the work and the byline both far too much to even think about thinking about it. And Clark Kent certainly wasn't looking for a casual fling, a notch on the bed post, or any port in the storm. He's just not _that _guy.

_And I will certainly do everything in my power to help her get through it, no matter what it takes, or how long… no matter how my heart might break._

Clark Kent was, is, and ever more shall be, a forever man. He had no doubt that the one and only woman he would ever want to spend forever loving would always be Lois Lane. The lofty goal of living up to her expectations, of embodying the highest standards and ideals she believed in of him as much as she herself believed in, had every bit as much to do with defining the man he had become as his much-loved parents and their solid, morally sound nurturing. She really did complete him, just as he had waited all his life to find her.

_I've finally found her. And God help me, but I __**do *love* **__her._

And now that he had finally connected so completely with her,_ so intimately_, he just hoped he hadn't accidentally shot himself in the foot with his own laser-vision.

But being with Lois, making love with her, as foolish and improbable as it seemed, was only the beginning of that long, outlandish night of lunacy… And any doubts as to the validity of the flood of memories emerging as full wakefulness penetrated his dense skull were laid to rest as his sensitive hearing began picking up the neighbors' morning news broadcasts.

_Oh, boy... this isn't good. Something tells me I've got some Super-'splainin' to do…_

~*S*~


	2. Chapter 2

~*S*~

Part Two

~*S*~

Mad Dog Lane was certainly living up to her reputation when she stormed into the bullpen after having her "relaxing" weekend interrupted for the second time in as many days by a breaking story. Her ire was further fueled by the fact that said story revolved around her duplicitous partner's alter-ego, who apparently had run amok in a havoc-wreaking overnight rampage. Something was very definitely wrong with the mild-manner-reporter-cum-Superhero—and that's a Latin *cum*. Linguistically speaking.

Really. Truly. Honestly.

_Yeah, right._ She wasn't even fooling herself, she realized with a frustrated little growl.

She hadn't even had time for the revelation-cyclone of thoughts to slow in the least when Perry had called her back in to the Planet—or more like insistently demanded. Ordered, really.

So she threw on a casually professional fire-engine red blouse and a coordinating calf-length skirt of the retro-40's vogue style. She hadn't intended to ever wear this particular garment from her vast wardrobe inventory, especially not in public; it was usually kept hidden amongst her collection of undercover costumes. Lois Lane had always loved playing dress-up for as long as she could remember. She had such affection for clothes that her mother sometimes called her a living Barbie doll.

This skirt, however, had not been bought for covert activities. Nope, this one was part of her big secret guilty pleasure. Her Super-guilty pleasure: a vast inventory of Superman memorabilia. After Clark had caught her in one of her Superman nighties, she took extra defensive measures in precaution of keeping her stash from ever being exposed to the world. But those first few weeks after Superman's debut, ambitious merchandisers flooded the markets with Superman paraphernalia of every imaginable kind, and Lois had wanted it all. She didn't quite go full-hoarder overload, but she had an impressive stock of some of the most unique, audacious, priceless, and sometimes just plain ridiculous Superman accouterments ever crafted.

And so, this skirt… This skirt was made of a shimmery, shiny spandex fabric with the bold red Superman shield splattered against a primary blue back ground. A pair of calf-length lace-up red boots that the hem of the skirt just tickled filled out the ensemble, and it was completed with a Superman-red shawl clasped against her clavicle with a Super-crest broche. Beneath the eye-catching pin, the cover-up parted for a tantalizing glimpse of ample cleavage accentuated by the lowly swooping sweetheart neckline.

As she took stock of the finished product in the full-length mirror, she smiled wickedly for a moment. Then her nose crinkled and her brow wrinkled. _I wonder what Freud would make of my coincidental packing of this ensemble for my undercover sting with ClarkKent-Superman. _She shook the thought away, snatched her purse with its precious cargo safely tucked inside and away from prying eyes, and left the Lexor bound for the Daily Planet.

There was no doubt that Lois Lane was on the war-path when she entered the lobby of the Planet, and everyone cleared a broad path as she stormed through. Throughout her ride on the elevator lift, her colleagues left her more than her fair share of personal space and fairly cowered under her glowering stare; they could practically see the smoke pouring out her ears. Even so, several cheers, wolf-whistles, and cat-calls chased the brooding woman all the way through the lobby, all the way up to the newsroom in the elevator, and all the way from the lift, down the ramp, and not to her own, but to Clark's desk.

"Wow, Lois! Guess you're really thankful to Superman for stopping that tsunami, huh? Indulging the old Super-Spirit?" Jimmy Olsen had just brought a large stack of papers to Clark, and he dropped them a bit clumsily as he couldn't seem to tear his eyes off Lois's cleav—clever support for the Superhero. Lois glared at Jimmy until he tucked his tail between his legs and left without another word.

Clark, in the meantime, had been choking on his own tongue as he kept accidentally swallowing it. _I'm in trouble…_ _And man, oh man, but she has never looked so sexy. I am in big trouble._

Lois glared around at the last lingering staffers still gawking until they, too, tucked tail and ran back to their own work.

Clark gulped. _So much trouble. Super-sized, all caps, three exclamation points. _

Then Lois pulled a large red purse around from behind her shoulder and dropped it on Clark's desk. She opened the catch, her eyes boring into Clark's with unconcealed fury. Still holding locked-horns with him, she pulled the purse wide open and slipped one hand inside. She drew her hand back out only far enough for Clark to see what she held so tightly clasped in her grip. He tore his gaze from her face to glance down at the contents in her hand.

_**TROUBLE!**_

Satisfied that he knew the jig was up, Lois nodded Clark over to an empty conference room, darkly musing on the thought of how the world would laugh if they could see their _Superhero_ walking tail-tucked with an almost comical hang-dog expression. Unfortunately for Clark, Mad Dog Lane was in no mood to laugh.

"Uh, about that… I, uh, was going to ask you about them… that is," Clark stammered as he entered the chamber. "Um… I, uh…I didn't unpack till this morning, so… um, I didn't know they were missing… you know… the last time I talked to you." He turned to make eye-contact with her as he closed the door behind him.

She lit into him the second the door latched shut, turning the blinds closed as she began a rampage of her own. "Did you really think there was even an abominable snowball's chance in Hades I would buy **any** lame cover-up excuse for these?" With all the blinds now closed, she tore the undergarment out of her purse and threw it at Clark, hitting him right between the eyes. "That you could make me _rationalize_ this with some weak-minded _**'logical'**_ explanation?"

Clark tucked the briefs into the inside pocket of his sports-coat. He tilted his head back, closed his eyes, and let out a soft sigh. "I'm sorry," he told her as he met her irate glare once more. Before he could speak again, though, a pained grimace filled his features and he dropped heavily into one of the chairs at the conference table.

~*S*~


	3. Chapter 3

~*S*~

Part Three

~*S*~

For a moment, all the fight seemed to drain out of Lois as she was swallowed up in concern for her partner and supposed friend's well-being. "Clark? Are you okay? What's wrong?"

"Headache," he ground out roughly. He kept his eyes fastened shut.

"Do you want me to get some aspirin?"

Clark finally raised his eyelids as he lifted his head to meet her gaze. "Aspirin doesn't really do anything for me, to be honest."

Her indignation flared up again. "Well, at least you're being honest."

"I have always bee honest with you, Lois," Clark quickly replied. "Always. Except for this one thing. I guess I always hoped you'd understand when you found out."

"So you did plan on sharing this little secret with me someday?"

"Yes! Of course. I've wanted to tell you from practically the moment we met, but…"

"But?"

"Well, let's face it, Lois. You didn't exactly make things easy."

"So this is my fault now?"

"No!" Another flicker of pain washed through his eyes before he could continue. "No, Lois, I am not saying this is your fault. I'm just saying… do you have any idea how hard this has been for me?"

"Well," she began, "I suppose I can see how the whole habitual lying thing might be a challenge for someone like you."

"Someone like me," Clark repeated softly. "You mean the naïve hack from Nowheresville. Just a simple country bumpkin."

"Clark," Lois spat out in cautionary tone.

"Did you know I spent the better part of four years globe-trotting as a freelance journalist before landing here at the Planet?"

"Landing," she snickered.

Clark pressed on, his own sense of self-righteous indignation flaring up at long last. "I've visited every single country on this planet, lived in quite a fair few of them. I can speak 347 different languages if you include all the different dialects. Before becoming Superman, I'd already saved 2,364 people's lives, diverted mudslides and lava flows, dug survivors and casualties alike out of the rubble of the world's most devastating earthquakes, prevented a runaway train from derailing, extinguished numerous wildfires, and I even managed to prevent a couple of major oil spills on the world's oceans."

Over the course of his tirade, Lois's expression gradually softened as she began to see her rookie partner in a whole new light. "I suppose you've probably pulled a couple hundred cats out of trees, too."

"More like a couple thousand, but who's counting?" Clark returned with a slightly teasing smile.

"You're right," she finally conceded. "I really don't have any idea how hard it's been for you."

"It's not always hard," Clark replied. "And in a lot of ways, it's been much easier since I came up with the whole superhero-secret-identity."

"How _did_ you come up with such a wild idea?" Lois's eyes crinkled in puzzlement. "It certainly doesn't seem your usual forte."

Clark chuckled lightly. "Well, truth be told—

"Isn't that the point here?"

"Truth be told," he reiterated after she cut in, "Superman is as much your creation as he is mine. It was something you said one of the first mornings we started working together as partners."

Lois was taken aback. "Something I said?"

"Remember that explosion down the manhole? One of the workers was trapped, and after he was mysteriously rescued, he started pointing at me saying I'd saved his life."

"And you were covered in filth and grime," Lois groaned. "How did I not see that?"

"People tend to see what they want to see, what they expect," he answered her gently. "Anyway, when you saw all that 'filth and grime', you told me I should do what you do; keep a change of clothes on hand at work."

Lois's eyes bulged wide with disbelief. "And from _that_ you came up with this whole alter-ego persona?"

"Well, the basic idea came from there," Clark replied. "As for the actual persona of that alter-ego… you are every bit as responsible for who he is and what he represents as me. Maybe more so in some ways."

"Really." The word wasn't much of a question, and it did not sound like Lois was at all convinced.

"Do you remember a few days after Superman's debut; he seemed to disappear for a bit after saving a couple of roof-top jumpers and surviving a bank explosion?" At her nod, Clark pressed on. "Those were tests, and the person responsible swore to keep testing, to keep endangering innocent lives unless Superman left Metropolis. For good."

"What?" Lois was stunned. "Who would do such a thing?"

"I'm not sure you really want to know—or that you'll even believe me if I tell you."

"Try me."

"Lex Luthor."

"Lex?" This time her eyes nearly popped right out of her head. "But—

"Lex Luthor has essentially declared war on Superman." Clark's tone brokered no room for argument. "Besides his lust for power and wealth, it is his major driving purpose in life."

Lois shook her head slowly, her disbelief gradually melting into resigned acceptance of the truth in Clark's revelation regarding the man she could only now think to describe as his arch-enemy, a true nemesis. "I can't believe I didn't see that."

"Like I said, Lois. People tend to see—

"What they want to see," she finished with him. "I suppose you're right. Much as I hate to admit it, you're right an awful lot. Doesn't it get old?"

Clark let out a soft laugh. "Not with you. You make me work for it. 'Course, that just makes it all the sweeter."

"I'm sure."

"Anyway, I was ready to throw in the towel. I couldn't stand the idea of innocent people being hurt, or worse, because of me. But you changed my mind. You made me see how important Superman had already become to the world and everything he represented to those very people I so desperately wanted to protect."

"Wow. Did I say that?" Clark nodded with an appreciative smile. Lois shook her head with a wry little grin of her own. "Do you always talk about yourself in the third person?"

Clarke laughed again. "When it comes to Superman, yeah. Drives my mom nuts, too. But it helps keep things straight for me up here," he said as he tapped his temple with one index finger. "Less chance of slipping up, too."

"I suppose so," she agreed softly. "You're right," she told him again. "I really didn't have a clue how hard this must be for you."

"Like I said before, you've made it easier in a lot of ways…" Clark reached out to take one of her hands in his. "And now that you know the whole story, I'd be willing to wager that it's gonna be a whole lot easier to deal with."

"Well, I think we're about to find out, 'cause we've got some serious investigating to do," she told him as she pulled herself together in her standard professional demeanor. "So just what the hell happened to you last night? All I got between Perry and the morning newscast were the Super-highlights. Stealing candy from a baby, holding court with the entire squad of Met U's cheerleaders, letting a carjacker get way with a brand new Ferrari, stranding some poor little girl's kitten on the top of a fifty-foot redwood tree…"

"And that's just the highlights. I wish I knew," Clark replied. "All I know is, after we got off the phone last night, I went out for a late-night flight—

"'Cause why stroll when you can fly?" Lois interjected.

"When I caught the attempted hijack-in-progress of a tanker diesel," Clark continued without pause. "I think that was actually a set-up, though, because those hijackers pulled out some sort of strange new weapon and fired it at me. Last think I remember clearly is being engulfed in this bright, blinding red light. After that, everything's kind of a blur."

"Everything?" Lois asked with a hint of blush staining her cheeks.

"Most everything," Clark amended, a matching blush warming his features as well. "There are a few details that stand out pretty clearly."

"Well, that's…" she trailed of for a second, then cleared her throat to continue. "Good to know. Any idea how it was able to effect you?"

"Not really. The only thing I've ever encountered that was able to affect me that much was that Kryptonite that Jason Trask tried to use against me."

"But what about Miranda's pheromone spray? I mean, obviously the diluted stuff didn't affect you—after last night, there's no doubt left in my mind as to how attracted you are to me," she teased. "But after you sucked up the full batch of the concentrated solution, you were…"

"I, uh… I might have… exaggerated its effects… when I was in the Suit." At Lois's sharp stare, he added, "Can you blame me? You'd just spent the last two days throwing yourself at me! It's a good thing I wasn't affected by that stuff, or what happened last night would have happened a bit sooner."

Lois finally had to grant him that one, although she was still a bit begrudging. "Well, all things considered, I guess I really can't hold it against you. It's not like I had anywhere near as much self-restraint when I thought you were under the influence." Clark smirked. Lois harrumphed. "So Kryptonite is real, then? And it can hurt you?"

"I think it might well be able to kill me if I were exposed long enough." Lois visibly paled at the thought. "But Kryptonite is green, and that laser-beam thing was definitely red."

"Are you sure Kryptonite doesn't come in a variety of fruit flavors?"

Clark scarcely choked back a guffaw at her terminology. "I suppose it could, but I really have no idea for sure. I'd never even seen the green Kryptonite until we went out to Smallville to investigate that supposed EPA project on Wayne Irig's farm. My dad had kept a chunk secreted away in a lead-lined box out in the barn. The second he opened the lid, I was hit with the worst pain I'd ever experienced in my life. I actually passed out from it, and when I came to, my powers were gone. It was a full two days before they came back online."

"He really could have killed you," she whispered.

"He really could have."

"I'm so glad he didn't."

"Me too." For just a moment, they simply held frozen, lost in one another's stares.

Lois cleared her throat and returned to the business at hand. "Okay, so here's what we need to do: Track down those thugs, find their weapon, and determine if red Kryptonite exists. Not necessarily in that order." Clark nodded in agreement. "Are you back to normal now? Well, aside from the headache, that is. Superman doesn't get headaches, does he?"

"Not usually, no. I guess this is what it feels like to be hung-over. Alcohol never really affected me either, so I really wouldn't know, but… I've got the headache, the queasiness, and just a general blah feeling all over. But I think I'm thinking straight. Mostly."

"That's good. I guess you'll just have to take it easy till it wears off completely. You can save those super-feats of yours unless we really need them."

"Why do I get the feeling it's not going to be very difficult at all for you to start incorporating that newfound knowledge of yours regarding my 'super-feats'?"

"Because you're smart, and you've gotten to know me pretty darn well over the last few months we've been working together."

"That I have, Lois," he returned with an easy smile. "That I have."

"Let me just make one more thing clear before we dive out into this investigation," Lois added as Clark rose to his feet. "What happened last night… It will not be happening again." Clark's face was positively crestfallen. "Not until I feel like I know who you really are. All of you."

Relief stole into his eyes as he graced her with a lovingly indulgent smile. "Fair enough, partner."

Lois eyed him for just a moment longer before nodding with satisfaction. "Let's get to work, partner."

~*S*~


End file.
